Government is weighing a betting tax boost but with an extra allowance meant to protect smaller bookies from a hit to turnover.
Revenue currently levies 2 per cent on all bets placed with online or on-street bookies in the State, that is not passed on to punters, raising €103 million last year.
Reforms introduced in 2002 originally linked the charge to State funding for horse and greyhound racing, but Government effectively broke that in 2008 during a financial crisis. It allocated €95 million to those sports for this year.
Officials are considering a 0.5 per cent hike to the charge, according to the Department of Finance Tax Strategy Group report published on Tuesday.
They are also mulling increasing the current allowance to €65,000 a year per firm from €50,000, to ease the burden on small independent bookies, who turn over less than €2.5 million a-year.
However, the report cautions that Revenue fears that this measure could potentially require European Union state (EU) aid approval, as it would realistically only benefit a limited number of players.
Three companies, Paddy Power, owned by New York-listed Flutter Entertainment, Ladbrokes, part of UK group Entain, and Boylesports, dominate the Irish betting market.
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“Betting duty and betting intermediary duty is still overwhelmingly paid by a very small number of large firms,” says the report.
The strategy group also notes that the level of problem gambling in the Republic fell between 2014 and 2022, according to the Health Research Board.
Figures that organisation published in 2022 found that the incidence of problem gambling had fallen since previous research in 2014.
However, it stressed that the problem still hit around 135,000 people and that it was most prevalent in deprived areas and among those with substance abuse disorders.
Legislation going through the final stages in the Oireachtas will establish a Gambling Regulator along with measures meant to protect children and vulnerable people.
Betting duty, along with a 25 per cent levy on commission earned by betting exchanges, known as betting intermediaries in tax law, raised €102.7 million last year.
So far this year, it has raised almost €52 million. Government doubled the tax in 2019.
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